The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-02-23
A New York Hotel.

Chase of the Lyndon Union has gone on
another southern trip. In a letter to his
paper from New York city he gives some
interesting facts concerning the Fifth Ave-
nue. Hotel, of which a. b. Darling, native
of East Burke, Caledonia county, is one of
the proprietOrs. We make the following
extracts: "The present lease calls for $780,
600 year. This one item would demora-
ize st, Johnsbury hotel syndicate. The
help numbers an average of $50 persons,
and the payroll calls for $4,000 month, or
S10S.000 year. The taX-gatherer demands
$4,000 and the insurance man thinks $1,000
year cheap to insure against fire merely
the contents of the house. The market men,
not including grocers, last year worked up
a bill against the house of S325 900. This
was for meat, vegetables and fish. The bills
for articles consumed last year aggregated
$3.50, 1878. And this does not include wear
and tear, breakage, repairs, etc. 1t costs
81 600 year 10 make good the breakage in
crockery alone Two years ago, after a
time of general repairing, one mans bill
was 100000. This expense was all borne
by the lessees of the house and it all returns
to the benefit of the owner when the lease
expires. a year ago the dining-hall Sixty
by eighty feeD was retiniShed at an eX-
pense of $1,000 and the tea-room twenty
five by sixty feet at an expense of 1000, a
large part of both bills being for fresco-
ing and other decorations 1t will be seen by
these items that the lessees of the house are
not influenced by expense, but simply by
the demands of business. The following is
about an average list of the purchase of
supplies for one day: Eggs, 40 dozen; but
ter, 40 pounds; milk, 425 quarts; cream,
eighty quarts; oysters. 1000; beef, $3.50;
mutton, $50; poultry, $50; vegetables, $40;
fish, SD; fruit, $50; groceries, 500, and so
on. From the books the amount consumed
in one month reads as follows: Three tn ou-
sand seven hundred thirty-tive dozen of
eggs; 4,9SS pounds of butter; seventy-fve
barrels of -four 1880 quarts of milk 1861
quarts of cream (they use cream here; 49,
76S oysters; $3.50 clans; S,327 pounds of
sugar LII pounds of hard soap; 266,050
pounds of ice; 2lS tons of coal; 46S barrels of
charcoal st, worth of beef 81 500 worth of
mutton S400.3S worth of poultry; 81, 1S2
worth of vegetables; S93S worth of fish; 3d.
3S4 worth of fruit; S3,2i5 worth of groceries
81, l4S worth of sundry market articles not
mentioned in above. The total market bills of
the month amounted to S2S,6S12l The
hotel books, which are kept in most per-
feet system, with all items of expense and
receipts properly classified, show over
SS,OOO,O00 spent for marketing from 1889 to
1886 inclusive. There must be great waste,
as ma iority of guests will not eat half which
is set before them. Well, every day man
appears with his cart and takes away a load
of broken victuals, which he sells at a
discount to poor people and for which he
pays the hotel $40 a month. Then the
TAVERN appears with his cart and gets on an
average twenty barrels of swill-no Stops
consisting of bits of bread, meat, poultry,
fish, pie, cheese. fruit and broken crockery,
which he carries far away to his hogs and
for which he pays the hotel $1,000 year,
and gets a splendid bargain at that The
soap-grease sold brings $1,000 year, after
using all necessary To make scrubbng soap
for the house. In the great refrigerator we
found $1,000 worth of beef ripening. And
such beef 1t receives a supply daily, but
remains ten days before being ripe enough
for the table. The kitchen is supplied with
a twenty-tive-foot range, two immense
brick ovens and roasting corner in which
numerous and immense roasts of beef, pork,
poultry and game are constantly revolving.
The large kitchen is full of workers-meat
cooks, pastry cooks, griddle-ca ke-makers,
bread-makers, cake-makers, etc. Such an
establishment as the Fifth Avenue keeps
every grade of help, from common to the
highest skilled. Besides hall boys, walters
cooks chambermaids, door boys, etc, there
are one or more painters, carpenters,
masons, plumbers, frescoers, upholsterers,
cabinet-makers and others in constant en-
ploy."